Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns all of these characters, except Aura Venezia, and the later song lyrics belong to American Hi-Fi

WARNING: This story will contain SLASH. If you do not like it, please do not read it!

A/N: Thanks again to EG and AA, and to Em: can you spot my recurring theme? Mandé, I know yours is fuschia, but mine is a little more . primate like. Anway, thanks for the ideas.

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Friday afternoon double potions arrived again, but Professor Snape did not. The students took advantage of this time to antagonize one another. Aura noted that an interesting game of catch had begun, involving Bohemian monkeys and something else that looked decidedly disgusting and squishy. Whatever it was, it was getting everywhere, and it would certainly be a pain to clean up.

While the two sides of the game were Slytherin and Gryffindor, she noted that there was at least one student on each side that seemed rather reluctant to partake. Those students were Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter.

Aura turned her observation to Harry first, who seemed completely lost in thought, and by the look on his face, completely confused as well. Her guess was that he was thinking about the same person he dreamed about. Aura wished that she could offer more counsel to him, but she knew that the less she interfered, the better. More natural equaled more powerful, and she knew that nothing less than the most of what both of them could give would be enough. She gave a small sigh, and then looked to Draco.

He was a little more of a problem. Aura had thought that the best way to get through to him would be to show that she was equally clever, but it seemed that Draco was unprepared to deal with a female intellectual equal (at least, when it came to being a smart mouth). She had meant to win his trust, so that way, when the time came, he would be more likely to believe her when she told him what he needed to do .

She sighed again. How could fate have been so twisted as to make them the ultimate enemies? How could they ever learn to trust one another when, from the beginning, their relationship had been based on lies? Speaking of lies, she reflected grimly, when would the two of them stop lying to themselves? Maybe if they had not always been enemies, they would be more willing to accept their feelings, and less likely to doubt the possibility that they might be .

"Aura? Hey, Earth to Aura!" she heard Ron's voice in her ear.

"Huh? What?" she asked, still not quite free of her thoughts.

"You look like the fate of the world has just been dropped on your shoulders," he chuckled, but he stopped laughing when he heard her reply.

"My eyes see the world. It's no surprise my shoulders bear its fate," she said.

Ron had been just about to ask her what in Merlin's name she meant by that, when Snape stormed into the room, looking particularly upset. When he saw the mess that had been made in the classroom, he got even angrier, and promptly gave the entire class a detention. Amidst the seething emotion spreading quickly throughout the room, Ron soon forgot what Aura had said, and she was once again left alone to contemplate the aforementioned fate.